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One of the things you learn about the movie business, if you watch it long enough, is that conventional wisdom isn’t so smart.

A hot trend can go cold faster than a box of buttered popcorn. That might well be the case with the current 3-D frenzy, which is starting to attract more brickbats than bouquets.

The reverse also holds true. Ideas that Hollywood wrote off as unworkable or played out can suddenly become viable again. Nobody thought pirate movies would sail again until Johnny Depp became Capt. Jack Sparrow.

This summer has seen a lot of assumed truths suddenly become unsubstantiated myths. Let’s explore four of them, with the help of industry watchers Jeff Bock, the senior box-office analyst for Exhibitor Relations Co., and David Poland, the editor of MovieCityNews.com.

Myth No. 1: Hollywood no longer wants to make smart and original movies, because audiences don’t want to think or be challenged.

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For some time now, movie critics (present company included) and pundits have bemoaned the dumbing down of the industry. Small and clever films have trouble finding theatres and eyeballs, while bozo blockbusters pack ’em in at multiplexes from Punxsutawney to Pandora.

There were dire predictions that movies had devolved into a generic diversion to view in a bovine position, while consuming mass quantities of fat, sugar and salt. It certainly seemed this way last month, when Adam Sandler’s utterly moronic Grown Ups did unaccountably good business.

Then came Christopher Nolan’s dream thriller Inception, a movie that is harder to figure out than BP’s oil spill strategy. People are lining up to see it multiple times because they find it so intriguing.

It has helped erase doubts that smart movies can sell, just as Toy Story 3 proved that sequels don’t have to be stupid. Inception raises hopes that Hollywood will green-light more smart flicks, but might it just be a fluke?

Bock and Poland lean toward the latter view, while acknowledging that Nolan pulled off quite a feat, persuading Warner Bros. to bankroll an expensive and hard-to-sell movie that was a dream project in more ways than one.

“It’s because the competition (for Inception) was just not there this summer,” Bock said.

“The fanboys who normally would have flocked to see a Green Lantern, a Thor or a Batman, flocked to Inception instead. The buzz really got behind it. And it definitely lived up to the hype, which is not true of all fanboy films. It became their de facto choice to latch onto as we got out of May and into the dog days of summer.”

There’s no doubt that audiences were intrigued by Inception, Bock added, and it also appealed to adults who read movie reviews — most of which were glowing about Nolan’s film.

“There are a ton of pre-sold franchise movies and sequels, yes. But are we really talking about Inception being a freak just months after an original with some interesting ideas — Avatar — became the highest grosser of all time? Does Shutter Island count? How about The Hangover, The Blind Side and Gran Torino?”

The bottom line: Audiences aren’t afraid of originality or difficult concepts, as long as they feel they’re getting value for their money.

Myth No. 2: In the near future, all movies will be made in 3-D.

A lot of people were talking this way not so long ago, especially after James Cameron’s 3-D Avatar demolished thephenomenal box office of his 2-D colossus Titanic. Cameron and other filmmakers spoke glowingly of a future where all movies would be in the third dimension, making much multidimensional moolah.

But recent signs indicate the bloom may be off the 3-D rose. There’s been loud criticism for lousy 3-D conversion jobs like Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender, and moviegoers are starting to balk at the $3-$5 per ticket extra charge.

Influential movie critic Roger Ebert has criticized 3-D. So has Christopher Nolan, who refused to make Inception in 3-D because the process makes the screen noticeably darker.

Another ominous sign for 3-D is a large story in the current Forbes magazine, which suggests the process will turn out to be as short-lived a fad in the 21st Century as it was in the 20th.

Myth No. 3: Twitter replaces reviews and simple word-of-mouth for getting people to go to movies – or not.

When Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno nosedived in its second day of release this month last year, a lot of people called it the rise of the “Twitter effect”: unhappy people watching Bruno tapped out their pans while still in the theatre, and potential ticket buyers stayed away in droves.

A story this week on TheWrap.com industry blog said Twitter has been overrated as an influence on moviegoers, and there’s really no “Twitter effect” to speak of. People are more likely to text a message about a movie to one of their friends, or speak to them directly, than they are to broadcast a Twitter blast into the great beyond.

“A bad film is a bad film,” industry consultant Gordon Paddison, a former New Line marketing executive, told TheWrap.com.

“People say Twitter causes a movie to bomb. I say a bad film causes people to trash it on Twitter.”

Myth No. 4: For movies, summer 2010 is the Worst. Summer. Ever.

First impressions are hard to shake, and the season got off to a rocky start after the Iron Man and Sex and the City sequels underwhelmed and Prince of Persia, The A-Team and Knight and Day underperformed. Months earlier, boo birds had been pointing to summer 2010’s dearth of surefire franchises.

But things are looking up, and the season may end up as a winner after all.

“It’s definitely leveled out,” Bock said.

“July was a lot stronger than people thought. Even a film like The Last Airbender, which was panned, is at $125 million. Audiences are finding a lot of different films and there are not as many huge blockbusters. But we still have Toy Story 3 and Shrek 4. Those films did exactly what they needed to do. And, of course, there’s Inception.

“If Eat Pray Love next month becomes the huge hit that many people expect it to, and maybe also The Expendables, then we are talking about a summer that’s going to be on par with last year — and last summer was the best summer on record as far as box office goes.”

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